Steven Pinker: evaluation

Transcript context

…Steven, where would you go in New York to actually meet them? I know where you’d go to meet me, Grand Central Station. It would pop into our minds, and each of us knows it would pop into the other’s mind because we both read Tom Schelling. Nowadays, Grand Central Station isn’t what it used to be, and it’s quite possible that it wouldn’t be a Schelling point. That is, a point that serves as a coordination equilibrium simply because each one knows that the other one knows that it will pop into the other one’s mind. Schelling actually addresses that. He wrote in 1960 when Grand Central was much more influential. Indeed, I think people did studies, and they showed that people actually would, as he predicted, use the clock at Grand Central, not as a plurality of choices. As Schelling notes, because he noted this is very fragile, he said this is the point when it comes to actually choosing what we now call a Schelling point, common salience, this is where game theory, rational analysis, logic, leave off, and human whimsy, caprice, even poetry, take over. That is, anything that pops into mind as a possible solution is a solution because it popped into your mind if it’s likely to pop into the other person’s mind. He suggested maybe the couple will rely on whimsy and look for each other at the lost and found, or maybe something came up in conversation the night before, or maybe there was a guy with a sandwich board advertising a particular coffee shop. When it comes to the points that people converge on because the other one knows that they will converge on it, there doesn’t have to be any rhyme or reason other than human psychology. It pops into your mind. Where would you pick? Ess-A-Bagel? Somewhere, right?…

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